His words had touched her deeply, making her shed tears for something entirely different as she hugged him tightly despite his body groaning in protest. "I'm sorry Alrick! I was being really stupid while you were trying so hard", she said while wailing like a child.
He let a hoarse chuckle despite the pain and hugged her back, patting her head affectionately, "It's fine Ellie"
"It's not!", She had continued crying for a while before finally being too exhausted to continue doing so, Alrick was surprised no one had come in shouting, 'Hands up where I can see them!!'. He laughed to himself for thinking about such a thing.
Gosh I'm an idiot.
He got up and walked over to the auto snac-... Food dispenser thingy and had it make a buttload of food, New Yorker style. As they ate quietly, they couldn't help but feel they were having their last supper, not that it was though.
They even cleaned up a bit and took a well deserved nap despite the fact that someone might come in at any second, it was solid proof of how tired the two were, most especially Alrick.
They woke up a while after and decided to leave since staying there longer might not be safe, he gave her a tech gun and taught her how to use it— the extent he knew how to use them at least.
Then even gave her some tubes of the numerous seemingly useless glowing yellow pills.
They seemed like a waste of space at the moment but he had a feeling they'd be useful at some point and didn't want to take risks.
Once he made sure that there was no noise outside, they walked out of the room and back into the bright hallway.
They held their guns out and didn't stop looking around to avoid being jumped at the worst possible moment.
They continued walking down the eerily quiet hallway, they couldn't enter the other rooms since all the access cards they had were blocked, they could only keep going forward.
Alrick understood that their situation was dire, the guns they had were each at half life and almost out of ammo.
They couldn't even run anywhere other than back down the hallway which was a dead end.
He didn't know how to salvage the situation they were in and could only pray for a beneficial situation to present itself.
"Hey guys~", The chillingly sweet voice came from behind them causing the hairs on their neck to stand.
They immediately turned around and fired the guns in their hands without a second thought until the ammo had completely run out, even then they kept on pulling the trigger.
They realized their blunder, and were about to reach for the next gun in their pockets when they noticed something weird.
The person standing before them had their head down and their arms spread wide open with their upper body riddled with holes from the shots.
What was weird about it was that the person's body vibrated not out of pain or fear but as if they were... Laughing?
They were soon proved right when the person let out a laugh, wrapping her arms around herself and laughing harder.
She raised her head, her grey eyes reflecting their figures as her platinum blonde hair peeked out from under the military cap on her head.
She let out a dazzling smile that chilled their bones, making them forget to even use the guns again.
She stood up straight and rolled her shoulders back to stretch, the holes in her body closing up like she wasn't just shot more than twenty or so times.
Once she felt like she was good as new, she dusted her clothes down all while ignoring the mortified looks on their faces. "Oh goodness, my outfit is ruined. What a pain", Tracy pouted as she stuck her finger through some of the holes.
"What the-... What are you?!", he asked, visibly shaken by what he just saw. Even Eleanor was quivering at the sight.
Tracy laughed at the questions, "My goodness, kids these days are so rude. No…hello? No… how was your day?", she shook her head while clicking her tongue at their supposedly rude behavior.
"Is this witch serious? Alrick, is she trying to be funny right now?", Eleanor felt her rage rising, her frustration seeping out as she reached for her pockets. Alrick put his hands on her shoulder trying to calm her down and also not to provoke Tracy.
"Why are you doing this? Why are taking the lives of innocent people like they're nothing, even children! How sick are you?!", Alrick couldn't help letting his agitation show.
He still felt the pain of losing his family and the person to blame for it all was standing right in front of him.
Tracy put her index finger on her cheek and looked up like she was pondering the question, after a while she snapped her fingers like she figured something out.
"I do these things... because I can and honestly, those lives mean nothing to me unless I meet my end goal"
Her words sparked the anger in his head and he raised up his gun to fire.
She smiled at this and at a speed the human eyes couldn't quite follow, she was already right in front of him before the gun was up, her hand aiming for his neck.
Before she could achieve what she wanted, Alrick raised his second hand and threw something in her face causing her to retract her hands and cover her eyes in pain.
It was salt. He had gotten it from the food dispenser earlier, hoping to pull off the same trick. Judging from her reaction, it seemed to have worked.
Whatever she was, could still be affected by mundane things.
And for how he was able to catch up to her movements? Our boy focused every amount of strength still left in his body into the hand that shot out the salt.
He fired the gun in his hand at her face in quick succession, aiming to further disorient her while he grabbed Eleanor with his now busted left arm.
"Run dammit!", he pulled her along and ran before that thing recovered, the screams of frustration that came from behind fueled the urge to run faster down the hallway.
He pulled Eleanor who was desperately trying to catch up to him, she knew she couldn't bother him anymore and needed to contribute in their survival but damn was he fast.
She wondered if he ate something that made it seem like he was on steroids.
They made a clean turn at a bend at the last moment, causing the footsteps behind them to be delayed for a moment probably to adjust to the turn. It was obvious that the relentless pursuer behind them was that mad woman Tracy.
No matter how much they ran she always kept a steady consistent pace, not too close and not too far.
Every time he looked back and slowed down, she'd smile and slow down as well. She had no intention of just catching the easily, she was toying with them.
He gritted his teeth every time he heard her taunting snickers while she casually jogged after them like it was just another walk in the park for her.
He would lie if he said it wasn't messing with his head, and that was definitely what she wanted.
He cursed again and looked back at Eleanor, "You good Ellie?"
She nodded while swearing, "I'm good, but the witch is playing mind games right now. Who the heck is she, acting all high and mighty while toying with a couple of kids. You're a bully, witch!", she spat at Tracy but didn't dare stop running.
Tracy just laughed at her swearing and picked up her pace a bit, scaring the two. Alrick had to lunge Eleanor forward before turning a bit and firing the gun at her while trying to keep his pace.
She dodged most of them with ease before casually picking up her pace and running up the wall and flipping over him.
He swore he saw her blow him a kiss before she landed in front him, and sprinted ahead.
By the time he realized what she was intending it was already too late. He stopped in his tracks and tried to catch his breath while wiping the sweat on his forehead.
He stood up straight, glaring as Tracy, who currently had one arm wrapped around Eleanor's waist from behind and the other holding her fingers to her neck.
Her nails had grown to resemble small blades, pricking Eleanor's skin.
She leaned her head closer to Eleanor's while staring directly at Alrick, the smile of pure joy giving him an unsettling feeling.
His eyes narrowed as her nails lightly pressed against Eleanor's neck, blood trickled down after.